JFK Assassination Forum

I am not sure how this is in any way similar to JBC being hit in the back by a bullet after he heard the first shot.  If I understand the neurological pathway correctly (I don't profess to have any expert knowledge of our neurological system so this may not be completely correct) your eye picked up the sudden snake movement and your brain automatically sent a signal to your leg muscles to move.  Your amygdala then made the decision to initiate flight or fight and caused the brain to release the appropriate biochemical to give your body the ability to carry out that response.

In JBC's case he heard a rifle shot. That might result in a startle response but he said it did not.  He said he recognized it as a rifle shot and immediately thought that an assassination was unfolding so his concern was for the President seated behind him. He said he turned to the right and (at least in his hospital interview) said that he saw that the President had slumped. He then decided to turn to the left to get a view of the President but felt the impact of the bullet in his back before he could complete that turn. I don't see the hormones kicking in from a stimulated amygdala to really be a factor in that. 

I don't see his reaction to the sound of the shot or to being hit in the back to be anything similar to suddenly noticing a snake.  So far as I can tell, only you and Dan have thought there might be a connection.  A neurologist's opinion might assist your argument but in the final analysis, such opinions must be supported by evidence and there would appear to be none from JBC.

I don't see his reaction to the sound of the shot or to being hit in the back to be anything similar to suddenly noticing a snake.

We had just made the turn, well, when I heard what I thought was a shot. I heard this noise which I immediately took to be a rifle shot. I instinctively turned to my right because the sound appeared to come from over my right shoulder, so I turned to look back over my right shoulder, and I saw nothing unusual except just people in the crowd, but I did not catch the President in the corner of my eye,

The key words from JBC’s testimony have been bolded by me. An instinctive reaction is typically not voluntary. It is very quick and happens and is already complete before any thought has time to be formed in the mind. That is how the amygdala works, it  is much faster than the thought process that happens in the other parts of the brain. Again, feel free to research what is known about the amygdala. I can say very frankly that there was nothing voluntary about my jump backwards away from the snake. And it was already complete before I ever consciously noticed that there was a snake. It appears to me that JBC instinctively turned to his right due to the direction of the sound, then consciously realized that the sound was a rifle shot, then after failing to catch JFK out of the corner of his eye thought about an assassination attempt. All of this happened in a very short span of time. However, when the amygdala reacts like that, time can be distorted as we have been describing earlier in this thread.

Your theory would also have to explain why he reversed the order of the two events that he distinctly recalled: hearing a rifle shot then feeling the hit.  It would also help if there was evidence to support the theory.

Technically, it is just an idea, like yours. A theory requires some testing, peer reviews, etc like the SBT has had over the past 60-plus years. We have been explaining the time distortion phenomenon. You just don’t appear to be listening. If I had not experienced it for myself during the snake strike encounter I might not be so adamant about this. I will try to explain what I experienced again and relate some of it to JBC’s recollections.
My instinctive reaction of jumping backwards (amygdala controlled) happened so fast and so automatic that is was already over with before I even “knew” what was going on. I was hiking alone and was not scanning the trail ahead of me like I should have been.

I am not sure how this is in any way similar to JBC being hit in the back by a bullet after he heard the first shot.  If I understand the neurological pathway correctly (I don't profess to have any expert knowledge of our neurological system so this may not be completely correct) your eye picked up the sudden snake movement and your brain automatically sent a signal to your leg muscles to move.  Your amygdala then made the decision to initiate flight or fight and caused the brain to release the appropriate biochemical to give your body the ability to carry out that response.

In JBC's case he heard a rifle shot. That might result in a startle response but he said it did not.  He said he recognized it as a rifle shot and immediately thought that an assassination was unfolding so his concern was for the President seated behind him. He said he turned to the right and (at least in his hospital interview) said that he saw that the President had slumped. He then decided to turn to the left to get a view of the President but felt the impact of the bullet in his back before he could complete that turn. I don't see the hormones kicking in from a stimulated amygdala to really be a factor in that. 

I don't see his reaction to the sound of the shot or to being hit in the back to be anything similar to suddenly noticing a snake.  So far as I can tell, only you and Dan have thought there might be a connection.  A neurologist's opinion might assist your argument but in the final analysis, such opinions must be supported by evidence and there would appear to be none from JBC.

For some reason Wecht went from a reasonable and credible skeptic of the lone assassin explanation to a, frankly, reckless promoter of Garrison type nonsense. From someone asking good questions to someone giving bad answers, really bad ones. In a lot of ways he mirrored the JFK "community", from questioning, responsibly, the Warren Commission to making all sorts of outlandish claims about faked films and photos and planted evidence and secret assassination teams and coverups here and coverups there and...good grief, it never ends. Never.

Here he is in his last book excerpted below discussing Oliver Stone's fantasy movie "JFK". Wecht said he was a consultant for the movie. That he was willing to get within a thousand miles of Stone's hooey much less contribute to it and defend it (he said Stone used "valid sources"), is really damning. And defend it as historically accurate. Here he is on the single bullet: "We can be sure that someone placed that [single bullet/399] bullet there"? Really. The same bullet you said couldn't possibly do all of the damage to Connally? And "there" means what? A stretcher? Why not place it in the limo? And that someone was Ruby? Moreover, how could the conspirators know that the bullet they planted wouldn't be an extra one, one that exposed their conspiracy? They couldn't. C'mon Doctor, you're just making this up, this is Garrison level arguments - claims without evidence.

I don't doubt his sincerity, his patriotism, his sense that something terrible happened and needed to be revealed. But he went about it, it seems to me, in a reckless way.

Condolences to his family and friends.

A further note on John Connally's various statements and testimonies regarding the shooting, in the light of someone recalling a really traumatic, life-threatening event. Someone like Andrew will take a quote that he finds useful, ignore everything else then argue that Connally wouldn't make it up. I totally agree, I don't believe Connally is making anything up, I believe he is doing his very best to genuinely recall the shooting but his recollection of it is distorted in various ways. Because of this, his testimony cannot be taken at face value but must be 'interpreted' as it is not wholly reliable. It must be measured against evidence such as the Z-film, which should be considered primary evidence.

I dont ignore anything Connally said.  I am just not able to attribute much weight to some of the details, like his estimate of the number of seconds between hearing the first shot and feeling the impact of the bullet that struck his back.  Some of his recollections of those details are inconsistent with the recollections of many others. I find other witnesses as to the spacing of the shots to be more reliable. But I do accept his evidence that he heard the first shot and, after a perceptible period of time, felt the impact in his back. I accept that because it fits with the evidence of Nellie, Greer, Hickey, Altgens, Powers, Gayle Newman.

You, on the other hand are not just cherry picking one comment he made about it being a split second-a comment he later withdrew and said emphatically that it was not less than a second but more like 2.   You then proceed to editorialize and argue something contrary to what he always said. You want us to believe that the shot sound arrived at his ears after he was hit in the back, contrary to every statement that he ever made.  You are ignoring the substance of every statement he made on the subject, as well as ignoring all the other evidence that there were 3 distinct shots.

Dr. Cyril Wecht (1931 - 2024)

Here is my obituary for Dr. Wecht.

Fred

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/dr-cyril-wecht-1931-2024-%D7%96%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95-%D7%9C%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%94